Reality Check

Today I feel the sense of urgency of trying to get our student's communication skills up to speed. She will be attending school at the end of the month and has to be self-proficient in order to maintain her position at the school.

From all of the information we've received she has had one of the highest scores as far as Japanese children her age goes for the English Proficiency testing, however it is known that compared to European and South American countries - Asia seems to be a little behind in the verbal and written language.

Not to take anything away - I couldn't imagine getting immersed in a Japanese school and only speak and read Japanese and be able to pass any class or even get my point across except maybe to ask where the bathroom is.

This weekend and the coming weeks we will try to get her to read aloud and converse more openly in English. I speak a little Japanese and sometimes have thrown in the mix words here and there - I don't want to have it as a crutch for her, but to maybe ease her mind a little before a full fledged dunk.

I've Googled through the web to try and find an English teaching site that she could use a few hours a day - I haven't found one that seems user friendly or intuitive. One of which was all in Spanish (which even I can't read, to get to download the software).

At this point I am open for suggestions of anyone who teaches English to Japanese students.